Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Growing Pains

I've been writing less and less because I do a lot of things now. One of the newest things is performing musical improv on a weekly basis. Sometimes, this skillset is very natural to me. I sing a lot. A lot a lot. But I am very new at the whole actual musical improv performance shebang! Our first show was tonight. Bombs away! I'm experiencing things I haven't even thought about since, like, my first improv class. The total freeze-up. The complete poof, nothingness in dialogue. Sometimes knowing, "Wow, I really didn't kill it. I didn't even remotely injure it. I think I bored it." The shaky trust in a stranger who is now your husband and you're at a made-up party together and now there's a backstory about the party and your job at Bath and Body Works and also the piano is riffing so YOU ARE ABOUT TO SING. MAYDAY MAYDAY. I mean, really, many times it's fine, but it's...I don't know, almost exciting to be at the bottom again. I feel myself stretching and growing at an extreme rate. Most of the things I do take such time and slow sprouting. Writing plays is not, like, something you improve at in a two hour rehearsal. But musical improv IS. Trying new things helps us remember how scary the stuff we're used to can be for other people AND how incredible the feeling of rapid progress is. How sweet it is to be somewhere steps are miles instead of inches of nuance. Learning the basics in big sloppy bounds. Mud piles of newness flying!